Dustin's Fantasy campaign

Session 5

Pirates and zombies and necromancers, oh my!

1

DEC/16

Following the surrender of the pirates, the badly wounded were drained of energy and dispatched while their gear was collected as loot. Nakar, a sometime-dabbler in psychology and interrogation, advised that a tough tack might be most effective, and the surviving pirates and the lesser wizard were intimidated into revealing that they had a ship anchored off the far side of the island and served a powerful necromancer. Liana ultimately executed the mage despite his cheeky attempt to Blink away from her strikes. The sole remaining prisoner was loaded up with gear to serve as a mule while Nakar extolled for him the virtues of working for the adventuring company and stuffed an application form in his pocket.

Emerging from the cave and working their way back along the mountain cliff face toward the beach, the heroes managed to spot several enemies in the jungle just as the team was ambushed. Puke-spewing zombies backed up by human pirates came crashing out of the foliage, a horrific wraith materialized in front of the party, an earth elemental seemed to step directly out from the rocks along the path and a patch of magical darkness high on the mountain slope obscured the necromancer, who shot down bolts of lightning into the fray. Liana bravely confronted the earth elemental in single combat, managing to keep it from ravaging the group’s flank and ultimately destroying it with a series of powerful blows. Arthur stood toe to toe with one of the zombies, hacking at it with his sword while blocking its acidic bile sprays with his shield. Konshu was able to levitate another zombie while Zardrae used his acrobatic teleports to stab it repeatedly while high in the air. Seye went to work with a combination of vicious staff strikes and high damage Deathtouch spells, managing to drive off the wraith and drop several of the pirates as well. Even David got into the fight, using Winged Knife spells to throw his dagger around the battlefield. A Great Hasted and invisible Nakar cast Flight on himself and moved up to confront the necromancer. Shouting at the enemy wizard to get his attention, the halfling cast Flash and was satisfied to hear a grunt of pain from out of the darkness; after moving in and probing the area with staff swings, however, it appeared that the pirates’ leader had escaped again with a timely teleport spell.

As the dust settled, Liana noticed that the prisoner had dropped his load and fled into the jungle, and the swashbuckler went crashing after him while Nakar flew out over the canopy to assist. Arriving at the beach, she saw the pirate ship moored a hundred yards out and their captive swimming out toward it. Liana threw a rock and managed to clip him painfully in the arm, and then Nakar flew directly over him and demonstrated the adventuring company’s employee retention policy with a staff swing to the skull, sending him under the waves. The halfling considered moving closer and trying to burn the pirate ship’s sails with a Sunbolt, but reluctantly returned to join Liana, and the pair headed back to the rest of the group.

The group collected their loot, returned to the Hag’s Bounty and ultimately made their way back to Fallkeep without further incident. It came to light during the journey that their new gargoyle companion seemed both attracted to and an enhancer of arcane energy, though Nakar was miffed that the creature didn’t seem to take as kindly to him as the other mages in the party, grumbling something about all-too-common racism toward halflings. Upon completing the mission, the enchanter’s guild, true to their word, paid each of the heroes the agreed-upon fee and provided a free enchantment to one piece of gear.

One month later, an old friend of Jarrett Barclay named Lady Chanteuse arrived at the company office with a new contract for the team, where we’ll begin Session 6.

+5 cp for completing Traynor’s Island. Dual MVPs were Liana for single-handedly defeating the earth elemental and Konshu for some timely spells that controlled the battlefield. Now that we’ve got some money in our pockets, time to stock up on healing potions gang – I’ll tell you right now, Lady Chanteuse’s proposed mission will be no walk in the park.